Jim O'Keeffe (Cork South West, Fine Gael)

I am glad to have support from Deputy O'Rourke in this regard and Deputy Mattie McGrath's previous remarks were along similar lines. I have been in this House for a long time and have always tried to be moderate in my approach to legislation and to affairs in the House. However, I feel like raising the flag of revolution about legislation of this nature. Are Members living in the real world? Has the Government lost touch with reality?

The House is now in the process of pushing through legislation to establish 23 criminal offences to both persecute and prosecute employers. Members do so against a backdrop of an unemployment level that, according to the Taoiseach the other day, is heading towards 400,000 people, although that may be an underestimate. Are Members out of their minds? They are on course to establish a situation in which employers will become an endangered species. We should treasure the employers we have and should encourage new ones. We will never get out of the economic travails we face unless we adopt such an approach. As for this ridiculous approach of introducing legislation to hit employers on the head with a sledgehammer for not putting up notices and so on, are Members out of their minds?

I wish to address, in the strongest possible terms, a plea to the Government to get real. While Members wish to ensure that workers are not exploited, a raft of agencies already exists to ensure this does not happen. I refer to the Labour Court, the Labour Relations Commission, rights commissioners, the Equality Tribunal and other tribunals, the Health and Safety Authority and the Departments of Social and Family Affairs and Enterprise, Trade and Employment, all of which have a role to play in ensuring that workers are not exploited. We have a multitude of agencies and what we should combine their functions under a single agency.

The inspectors should operate under the aegis of the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment and should be allowed to deal with complaints as they arise. As for setting up a formal agency, I was about to call it Nero's agency but it is called NERA. Its sole purpose, as far as I can see, is to eliminate employers. It simply does not make sense. I have been a member of the Committee of Public Accounts for some time. Recent meetings of that committee have opened our eyes to what goes on in some State boards. I hope the report we publish tomorrow on events at FÁS will open many more people's eyes.

The interim board of the National Employment Rights Authority has been established and already there is evidence of empire-building. The headquarters are in Carlow and I have no particular objection to that location. However, I see from the report that the Minister launched some days ago that the authority has already spread its tentacles throughout the State, with regional offices established in Dublin, Cork, Sligo and Shannon. Each of these five facilities supports separate staffs.

Another proud boast of the Government is that the labour inspectorate has been increased from 50 to 80. Is the Government living in the real world?

See this speech in context